Mastodon
Infrastructure
federated social network server
SHOW HN2016
364points
146comments
#40of 2,264 in 2016
Top 2%of 2016 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
15 positive, 26 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 12 critical, out of 54 comments about the project. Thread score +0.03.
Idea: 7 for, 8 againstDesign: 3 for, 2 againstExecution: 2 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 2 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Good to see a GNU Social compatible alternative implementation
From 2 comments
Nice! I was preparing myself for a rant against yet another proprietary "decentralized" platform, when I read that this is GNU Social compatible :-). This is great, maybe some…
captainmuon on HNI really enjoy using GNU Social and it is good to see alternative implementations using the same protocol. An option to just use Postgres, and not Postgres + Redis might make…
mark_l_watson on HN
Looks good and interesting
From 2 comments
Looks really interesting and exciting. Feedback: - Strange decision to have several vertical feeds - doesn't seem very convenient. Can there be one stream with several tabs or…
rayalez on HNLooks good, would love to see this take off! I've been really curious about rails lately - were there any major benefits compared to writing this in PHP?
VertexRed on HN
Objections
Decentralized clones struggle to beat entrenched Twitter and Facebook without users
From 3 comments
Why do we keep building centralized "decentralized" services to replace entrenched centralized providers? What hope of victory is there against the Twitters and Facebooks of the…
xj9 on HN> Multiple companies could set up, some with ad-free paid options, others funded by advertising. OK. But why would they? What is the raison d'etre for such a company to exist?…
eropple on HNThat model still needs users, then. "It's self-hosting" does not provide any kind of user story for, say, me. I have Twitter. Twitter works. This adds nothing to the experience…
eropple on HN
Hard to find people to follow on a new instance
From 2 comments
But twitter has a global timeline, spends lots of money on user acquisition and partnerships with major corporations to broadcast and manage events. Even if we assume that…
KirinDave on HN> It costs you nothing It costs me my network on Twitter. Where everyone already is. > Personally I find the whole microblogging concept overhyped That's great, but that's also…
eropple on HN
Requires self-hosting or installation, a barrier for ordinary users
From 2 comments
> They're USP, which Facebook and Twitter can never compete with, is self-hosting. USPs work best when they address an acute problem the person you're pitching it to has to…
smacktoward on HNLooking forward to the day when we get a decentralized microblogging platform where clicking iOS/Android app store link and installing the app is all you need to get started.…
augustl on HN
Requests
Show public profiles or a user list on the main page
From 1 comment
Nice! I was preparing myself for a rant against yet another proprietary "decentralized" platform, when I read that this is GNU Social compatible :-). This is great, maybe some…
captainmuon on HN
Reddit-like tag discovery and a single unified feed
From 1 comment
Looks really interesting and exciting. Feedback: - Strange decision to have several vertical feeds - doesn't seem very convenient. Can there be one stream with several tabs or…
rayalez on HN
Fix layout and error bugs reported on the instance
From 1 comment
So, a couple nitpicks, hopefully of some use: https://mastodon.social/users/mnx/updates/11273 (no proper breaking of lines) https://mastodon.social/users/mnx/updates/11268 (might…
mnx on HN
Questions
How does decentralized discovery of users work?
From 2 comments
Some questions: 1. Is this supposed to be run by me (an individual?) or run for my by somebody else (some existing community?). 2. Is there any information on what makes this…
the_common_man on HNI still don't quite understand how these decentralized networks work. So there's no "global" stream you can take a look at? Only from people you added? Because from a privacy…
hypercluster on HN
How is spam and abuse handled?
From 1 comment
How is spam and abuse handled in this system?
pjc50 on HN
Does it support protected accounts?
From 1 comment
This is great. Good work! My entire family is currently using Path as a small social network and share a lot there. I'd love to move us to something we can control and where the…
timmorgan on HN
Alternatives named
GNU Social
From 2 comments
Nice! I was preparing myself for a rant against yet another proprietary "decentralized" platform, when I read that this is GNU Social compatible :-). This is great, maybe some…
captainmuon on HNI really enjoy using GNU Social and it is good to see alternative implementations using the same protocol. An option to just use Postgres, and not Postgres + Redis might make…
mark_l_watson on HN
Diaspora
From 1 comment
An alternative that's been out for a while now: https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/
bikamonki on HN
Twitter and Facebook
From 2 comments
Why do we keep building centralized "decentralized" services to replace entrenched centralized providers? What hope of victory is there against the Twitters and Facebooks of the…
xj9 on HNWhy would I use this over Twitter ?
supercoder on HN
Akasha
From 1 comment
I have high hopes for Akasha ( http://akasha.world )
phowat on HN